Step family contact after divorce

wrong thread

This happened to my son op, my dad’s wife was in the room when I gave birth and called him her grandson for 11 years. When she split from my dad she dropped my son like a hot potato, it broke his heart.
Im married now and my husband has a daughter and my husband’s family are lovely but I won’t ever blur the lines again, I am my sons family and even though I have been in my husband’s daughters life for 12 years I won’t allow the term step mum or dad or grandparent in mine or my sons life. I know the damage it does when it all goes wrong.

Sure, but it’s ones of those trite feel-good movie sentiments that doesn’t reflect actual reality in the majority of cases. A bit like advocating for world peace at a beauty pageant.

Also not in your sister case but how many step parents are we going to have to split contact with in some cases.

Friend A 4 children three baby daddies. Do dad 2 and 3 need to have contact with the priors making dad 3 need to take on four children for visits when he only has one with the mum?

That also takes time away from their actual parents, time from mum, mums family and time with their fathers side of the family if involved.

Poor kids being dragged around for all these blended failed families.

It's the norm after a divorce for the non parental spouse to stop contact.

A stepparent is just mom or dad's spouse who helps with the kids. Once the marriage or relationship breaks down, so does the role of childcare.

It's an artificial role.

You could end up with kids going to different custody situations multiple days a week and that's just not good for the kid.

It's also awkward when the ex moves on with another partner. Then there's no bio connection to anyone. What if the new partner has kids they don't get on with?

I think blending families is very difficult, doesn't work very well for the kids much of the time, and you can't force bio exes to step up if they don't want to so don't even bother with step exes.

If they choose to stay on the child's life, it's a bit different but that can be problematic when a new partner enters the bio parent's life.

I like what Cher from clueless dad said ‘you divorce wives, not children’

if safe to still have a relationship to some degree with ex step relatives then I think it’s in the child’s best interest for the parents to facilitate this but not constantly

People who welcome other child’s stepchild often do so because they think it’s best for their relationship with their child. It’s unusual that the genuine connection lasts after the breakup and the mum was naive to take the offer at face value. It also makes them look good to others.

Having some contact with stepparent can also be difficult. Say the stepchild goes once every 4 weeks while their sibling goes every week. That’s still rejection and sometimes cold turkey is kinder.

If the mum broke up when the child was older, there’s no guarantee that the breakup would be easier for the child. Even if the mum paid dad for the contact time so there was no financial cost, dad isn’t unreasonable to want to focus his limited contact time on his children and shouldn’t be made to feel bad that mum agreed to the riskiest kind of blending where everyone pretends to be biological family as long as the relationship lasts. Blending is for the benefit of the adults. Sometimes the kids win too but it’s obviously conditional on the relationship continuing.

I know of only one person who when their marriage failed kept in contact with the step child doing visitation and such and even that tapered off as the step child got older.

This is why blending families is a lie. It’s not blended ever. If a divorce happened 99% of those children will never have any contact with the step family again apart from maybe bumping into each other.

They treat the child as family just as they do the partner. Once the partners gone the child’s gone. Which is why despite protests if people must blend their families they need to not expect or encourage this whole fake granny fake aunty bs expecting that their child will be treated exactly the same because push comes to shove divorce/death/inheritance 99% of the time they would be left out or forgotten in a second.

@Anonforthisone1that must be hard when there are 2 half siblings who are still invited along. I guess it is more about how the ex feels about your sister & not actually much to do with the child. I think it’s quite common unfortunately & I suppose step parents & step grand parents will never 100% accept a step child in the same way as a blood relative. But it must be horrible for the eldest. Perhaps as a family you can try to redress the disparity.

It is on her though, ultimately as the parent she is the one responsible for her child.

She clearly knew that in the event of a relationship breakdown that her son losing his relationships with her ex and his family was likely. It doesn’t matter if they pushed, she could have (and seemingly should have) said no.

She needs to explain to her son that while they were very kind to include him and treat him like family that they aren't his biological family. That now the relationship has ended they don't want to have that level of contact. It's not his fault, and it's not anything that he's done. It's just that she's no longer with ex, and that changes thing. She understands that he might feel hurt and confused by that. I would set up therapy for him to talk it through. If he firsbt want to talk then explore other types of therapy like play or art.

Completely agree with this. As sad as it is for the boy involved, the step family aren’t doing anything wrong.

Agreed. If you have some kids with someone who doesn’t give a shit, then go on to have more with someone with an involved family, this is the risk ahead - you’re choosing to have children with widely differing family circumstances. MN is littered with tales of people upset that their child from a previous relationship is not treated exactly the same as their DC with the new partner. This is just another variation of this tale. The child can’t control anything, people cannot control how others act. The only thing you can control is yourself.

You had no right to tell her his family would of course stay in touch. I am a stepmum; a family member of DSC’s mum does not speak for me or my family. You have no idea of the nuance actually involved in these relationships.

@Anonforthisone1

You sound like you’re overly involved in this and need to step back. You gave advice on a really difficult situation and that hasn’t worked out because not everyone behaves how you think they should behave.

Just step away and support everyone involved in what they do rather than offering opinions and advice.

I don’t think it’s fair to say this is on her as she has done her best with a pretty bad deal.

Who else can be to blame? She has allowed two families in and out of his life. The only advice I would be giving her is to stay single.

My sister maintains a relationship with her stepchildren on weekly basis which means my mum still acts as their grandparent BUT my sister has a shared child with her stepchildren children’s dad so they are tied and and the stepchildren want to see thier sibling, my sister and my mum

Is this about you wanting childcare? Why does contact have to be a sleep over. Why can’t it be a trip to the park?

I’m a step parent with my own children and if me and DH ever spilt whilst the children were still young there is NO way I would invite another man to live with us.

IMO you simply can’t have a relationship without balancing everyone’s needs and priorities, which is right, but adult relationships and what’s best for the children will at times conflict. Honestly I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect an adult not to have their needs met in a relationship because of children - in a bio family it’s fine because everyone has the same goals and vested interests.

The answer isn’t to make that incoming adult suffer but not to invite them in in the first place. Home should be a safe haven for kids. You can have a relationship without living with someone.

Maybe the fact she became the main caregiver is the reason they split

If their parent doesn’t mind I can’t see the issue tbh it’s nice.

they might be grateful depending on how amicable the split is

Yes it is, but it's the way life is which is why parents should be incredibly cautious about blending a family 🤷‍♀️